They stole my birds
to the city I never visit,
packed them all together,
early,
when I was still dreaming.
The house was left silent,
the trees at dawn
empty of their songs.
It was a warning:
of punishment
soon to come,
for refusing to share
the empty life,
of those who live
without birds,
without books and poems
in the flat-faced city
I never visit:
where everyone yells and gesticulates –
but says nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Opinions, lectures and speeches
with nothing said,
desecrating the oven
where I bake my daily silence.

At dawn,
they stole my birds:
everything done by the book,
with a yellow receipt
in triplicate.
They even took the big cage
where once
on Saturday morns
the birds sang sweetly.
What the hell!
Why would I ever need
a cage with golden bars
now
with my birds gone?
It’s true: they stole my birds
and left a receipt in triplicate,
numbered, signed and sealed.
I tear it up in tiny bits –
and like confetti,
throw them to the wind.
Yes,
I expected censure,
punishment,
but nothing as cruel as this:
a cloud of yellow specks
spinning in the breeze.

They stole my birds
according to the book:
a receipt as evidence of the crime,
their chirps and calls
packed in cases.
I was left not only alone,
but deaf as well,
unable to hear one sweet
morning song or peep.
and surrounded by dense,
hushed
nothingness.

They took away my birds
and left me stranded
in my old garden,
a replica of the jungles
of Guyana,
like a shipwrecked freebooter
whose last seagull
has been dragged along
by the ebbing tide.
They took away all of them:
even the pompous cardinal,
the fragile lovebirds
and the canaries that sang arias
from “Lucia”
who I fed
with drops of morning dew.
They didn’t even spare
the wise,
old raven
escaped
from a poem by Poe,
or the Phoenix
of my childhood fairy tales.
Mercilessly and forever,
they stole the entire bunch
of winged,
singing children,
to the flat-faced city I never visit.
a dense hub
that boasts regal golden cages
for plastic birds.

Yes.
They got their revenge,
packed the songs,
calls and tweets
in sound-proof cases;
they loaded them in a hearse,
and sped off matter-of-factly.

They stole my birds,
I am afraid, irretrievably.
Took them
beyond the factories
where plastic birds are made,
near the scarecrows’ barracks,
in a warehouse
with an April stained roof,
they poured their cargo
into a huge aviary blender
mixing songs,
chirps and tweets
so they could never be heard
as individual voices,
and then,
voooom!
shrunk them into
fairytale books
for the children
who inhabit the flat-nosed city
which I never visit,
My poor little birds,
now forever pressed,
choked and baffled
within the soiled pages
of such gloomy tales.

They left me alone,
here and not here,
solitary and defiant
like an old defeated sheik
in the middle of the desert,
at the edge of the abyss
in sandy nothingness
without the sounds
of wings
or song
or life:
just all-pervading
emptiness.

It was evening,
a night filled with perfumes, whispers, and the music of bird’ wings;
A night
when fantastic glowworms flickered in the nuptial, humid shadows,
at my side, ever so slowly, close to me, listless and silent
as if prey to premonition of the most stinging pain
that inflamed the deep secret of your fibers,
over the path filled with flowers that stretched across the plain,
you were walking;
and the full moon
in the sky, so infinite, so unfathomable, spread its light.
And your shadow,
lean and languid,
and my shadow,
by the moon’s rays silhouetted
on the path’s sorrowful gravel,
were united
and were one,
but one long and lonely shadow,
but one long and lonely shadow,
but one long and lonely shadow…
Tonight,
desolate; my soul
by your death so bitterly pained and anguished,
torn from you by time, distance and the grave
upon that infinite blackness
where our voice cannot be heard,
lone and mute,
on the path I kept on walking…
And dogs braying at the moon came to my ears,
at the pale face of the moon,
and the croaking of the frogs.
I felt cold; the same chill that in your chamber
numbed your precious cheeks, hands and brow
amidst the snow-white linens
of the funereal shroud.
It was frost out of the tomb, it was the ice of the dead,
and the chilliness of the void…
And my shadow,
sketched out by the paleness of the moon,
walked alone
walked alone,
walked alone upon the prairie;
and your shadow, lean and graceful,
pure and languid,
as in that warm spring evening long ago,
as in that night filled with perfumes, whispers and the music of bird’ wings,
approached me and walked with mine,
approached me and walked with mine,
approached me and walked mine… Oh embraced shadows!
Oh the shadows of the bodies mingling with the shadows of the souls!
Oh shadows that search each other in tear-filled and somber nights!

I am including in my contributions to our blog, a translation I did of the great post-romantic Colombian poet Juan Asuncion Silva (1865-1896.) He is very
well know in Colombia, but not so in the US. His life was interesting, tragic
and short. I found his poetry well worth translating, but most difficult
because of its intense musicality in the original Spanish. I believe my
English version does it justice, but leave that for the readers to decide.
I think it is important to know something of this amazing poet. He is
considered one of the great post-romantic, modernist poets along with Ruben
Dario (Nicaragua), Leopold Lugones(Argentina), Poe (US) and Bauderlaire
(France.)
Born into a wealthy bourgeoisie family in Bogota, Colombia, Silva studied in
France and spoke both French and English. Upon his return to the reclusive
atmosphere of 19th century Bogota, he became a misfit as a highly sensitive
poet not understood by his peers. His family had many business problems and
was plagued by creditors. He is also said to have felt an impossible,
incestuous love for his half sister. It is she who supposedly inspired the
poem Nocturne III which I have translated.
After his father’s death in 1887, Silva worked day and night to pay off the
family creditors, all the while writing poetry. He spent time in Venezuela as
a diplomat, but upon his return to Bogota in 1895 he was shipwrecked off
Baranquilla and lost a trunk with his novels and poems.
According to legend, on May 22, 1896, Silva asked his physician where his heart
was located, traced it with red crayon on his shirt, returned to his ancestral
home, and shot himself. He was only 31 years old. There is still some mystery
around his death – some say he was murdered by old enemies from his business
dealings. He did not leave a suicide note.
This English version of Nocturne III has been said by critic, Fernando Lleras de
la Fuente, to be true to the musicality of the Spanish original.

I’m getting out
‘cause clinging vines are not grown in the subway,
and the imprisoned air
no longer smells of saffron,
sweet basil
and
women in springtime.
I’m getting out
‘cause they’ve
blinded and gagged the parks.

I’m getting out,
‘cause you can no longer
laugh freely and loudly,
and sunsets are sold in cans.

I’m getting out,
an investigation has been decreed on joy:
they’ve kidnapped fairies from the kids,
blinded and gagged books-
put them in jail,
and they’re selling death in tiny pills.

I’m getting out,
raids have been declared on vaginas,
they’re editing alcohol’s sweet dreams ,
and instead of birches,
they’re planting iron bars;
all the dikes of terror
have been unleashed.
I’m getting the hell out
‘cause laughter has turned to fear.
Even the last desolate rebels agonize
toward death.
I’m getting out
‘cause kisses are strictly censored….